Mission accomplished for doctors as Zika down to zero

Recalling the day when he received a call from health authorities to rush to Jaipur for preventing Zika outbreak from Viratnagar Dr Adab Aghwani felt a sense of achievement and accomplishment. Dr Aghwani was one of the 13 such doctors who were given responsibility of 13 different JMC wards for bringing down Zika cases to zero. Jaipur reported 159 cases of Zika till October 29.

Jaipur: Recalling the day when he received a call from health authorities to rush to Jaipur for preventing Zika outbreak from Viratnagar Dr Adab Aghwani felt a sense of achievement and accomplishment.
Dr Aghwani was one of the 13 such doctors who were given responsibility of 13 different JMC wards for bringing down Zika cases to zero. Jaipur reported 159 cases of Zika till October 29.

Before the first case of Zika was reported in Jaipur, only Gujarat and Tamil Nadu had reported four cases of Zika. When the cases of the disease kept pouring in frequently, the situation started spiralling out of control. It became even more challenging task to prevent outbreak of Zika from turning into epidemic for health authorities.

Dr Aghwani is happy as he was part of the team, which prevented Zika turning into epidemic. "I am happy that situation has returned to normal in areas which were affected with Zika. I was part of the health department's teams, which worked day and night to prevent spread of Zika for over one month. I am back to my original place of posting, which is health centre in Atela of Viratnagar," said Dr Aghwani.

The first case of Zika was reported on September 22. It was worrisome for health authorities when cases kept pouring in till October 29. Additional chief secretary Veenu Gupta along with other health department officials successfully managed to bring down cases of Zika to zero with intensive door-to-door survey and extensive anti-larvae and anti-mosquito activities.

Apart from doctors, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) workers and auxillary nurse midwives along with health volunteers too played an instrumental role in preventing spread of Zika at ground level under the monitoring of additional chief secretary (health) Veenu Gupta. The ASHA workers had conducted door-to-door survey covering more than two lakh houses in areas affected with Zika. The checked houses to find out places of larvae breeding. Also, their job was to find out pregnant women in the affected area and reporting to the medical officer, who was deployed as incharge of respective JMC ward.

The battle against Zika was won with the use of temiphose and fogging to keep the environment safe from mosquitoes.

"Since, no case of Zika has been reported since October 29, we have withdrawn teams of doctors and other healthcare staff, which were posted from other areas for conducting intensive door-to-door survey and other works related to preventing spread of Zika. More than 20 days have passed, no case of Zika has reported here," said Dr Ravi Prakash Mathur, additional director (rural health), health department.

Dr Mathur said that the doctors, who were called from different parts of Jaipur district, have handed over the responsibility to doctors posted at urban primary health centres (UPHC) of the respective areas.

Besides, teams from the ministry of health and family welfare too helped state's health department by providing technical assistance. Teams from National Institute of Virology Pune, National Institute of Malaria Research Chennai, National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme and other such teams from Centre, which kept visiting Jaipur time to time in September and October.

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